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Migrating legacy client/server and mainframe technologies to the Oracle cloud.

Wednesday Apr 18, 2012

I am working with a major corporation that has a number of iSeries machines that are mostly running AIX and Redhat Linux. This is interesting as I would think there is a premium for running
applications and databases on a hardware platform that has minmal processing power and is optimized for a different OS (i5/OS). This lead me to do some research on where iSeries and i5/OS is headed.
Interesting facts found on an iSeries blog:
"First, some statistics. According to IBM's own internal research, some 80 percent of shops have one or two OS/400 or i5/OS systems; this means that 20 percent have more than three machines in their shop. Moreover, IBM believes that 85 percent of the machines installed at OS/400 and i5/OS shops have only a single processor core in them; this again implies that only 15 percent have multicore boxes."
There are 1/2 million iSeries machines installed. Seems like many of these could be run on cheap x86 hardware platforms.
First, some statistics. According to IBM's own internal research, some 80 percent of shops have one or two OS/400 or i5/OS systems; this means that 20 percent have more than three machines in their
shop. Moreover, IBM believes that 85 percent of the machines installed at OS/400 and i5/OS shops have only a single processor core in them; this again implies that only 15 percent have multicore
boxes.